


9:18

by baudown



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:07:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baudown/pseuds/baudown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray wants something.  Fraser doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	9:18

 

 

 

He was acquainted with the concept, but had never considered its practical application to his own life; not until long after the need for such subterfuge had been eradicated.  Paging through one of Ray's barely-thumbed textbooks, seeing the words, and thinking, "Ah." 

"Denial," it read.  "An unconscious defense mechanism whereby emotional conflict is avoided through the refusal to acknowledge feelings, desires or facts that are intolerable."  An apt description -- in the jargon of the field -- of the psychological process that had enabled him to tolerate his life.  Although he noted a distinction: in Fraser's life, denial had been achieved consciously, through an effort of discipline, and will.  Blinding himself to desire, deliberately, effectively, for years, until he could look up and see, not loneliness, or the absence of love; but instead, the plain, concrete truth before him: a desk chair, a uniform, the vast, bleak horizon.

He'd thought that self-deception was behind him, once made to see the thing he'd most denied.  Scales falling from his eyes and thudding to the floor.  The first touch of Ray's lips to his -- thud.  The press of skin on skin -- thud.  The worship of hands and mouths -- thud, thud.  The sweet slide of Ray inside him, again, and again.  Thud, thud, thud.  A lifetime of desire rising up in him to be, miraculously, fulfilled.  Ray's body.  Ray's love.  A home together.  No reason, any longer, to deny.

He'd been wrong, of course; complacent in contentment.  Still burying unwelcome truth, shocked when it clawed its way to the surface, shouting, "Look at me!"  Ray, stepping through the cabin door, ice-tipped lashes and melting gaze: "If we're gonna do it, Fraser, we gotta do it soon."  He hadn't needed to ask, or even clarify.  Ray was speaking of a child.  Most certainly, of a child, or children.  The children Stella had refused him.  Ray's own dance with denial, for far too long -- the claim that this had ended the marriage.  Yet though the claim was spurious, the desire was no less real.

Fraser had said, simply, "Understood, Ray."   But that was all, from either of them, until nearly a year had passed.  And then, one gray morning, Ray looked up over the breakfast table, eyes intent.  "It's now or never, Frase," he said.

"Yes, Ray, I see."  His voice, calm and even, but inside, he felt himself plunging toward the bottom of a crevasse.

************

This is their fifth "meet and greet," each visit more distressing than the last.  The long drive to the agency, made oppressive by his own, stiff-necked silence.  How his hand stutters as he signs the visitors' log, the pen's ball-bearing chain rattling nervously across the desk.  The dispiriting place itself: a squat, cinder block affair, walls sloppily painted an apologetic blue, festooned with sagging banners and balloons.Even sadder are the so-called "guests":  bravely smiling couples, determined to stave off disappointment.  But worst of all are the children, offered up like so much chattel.  The older ones indifferent, or feigning it.  Resigned already, or struggling to douse the last, stubborn embers of hope.  The younger ones, still ignorant, so grateful for attention, arms reaching up and opened wide to anyone.

He knows he should feel sympathy for these lost children.  An impulse to protect them -- pity, at the very least.  But instead, in truth, he's angry.  Who are these children, trying to force themselves between him and Ray?

He's always suspected that, in some crucial way, he isn't really a good man.  Now, he sees that he's been right.  He's selfish, cold, uncharitable.  A matter of time until Ray sees it, too.  Because whatever choice is made -- to adopt, or not -- this child, or its absence, will live with them forever.  Growing larger, every day, taking up more space, and still more, filling their home with regret and resentment.  Poisonous, certainly; lethal, perhaps.

Ray drops a reassuring hand to his shoulder, mistaking dread for apprehension.  "Relax, don't sweat it," he says, the cockeyed grin in place.  "Can't force things, with kids.  Just be yourself."

Myself, he thinks grimly.

"Besides," Ray continues, his tone turning pensive.  "I think when you see him, you'll know.  You'll just know, you know?  In your gut.  Instinct, Fraser, not logic."  And then, with an edge of urgency, as if trying to convince them both: "You'll know, Fraser, you'll know when you see him."

"A boy, then?" Fraser asks, mildly; but he's wondering, how can Ray, who knows him so well, be so very wrong about this?  

"Aw, a boy...yeah, boys are good...but, hey, girls are great, too.  I'm not picky, Frase.  Whatever floats your boat."

Ray gives his arm a squeeze, and swims into the crowd.  Almost instantly, children are clustered around him, clamoring.  Children are always drawn to Ray.  As if, like Fraser, they can see beyond the tough-guy belligerence, the defensive posturing, and all the way to his kind and loyal heart.

The room is stuffy, and overheated.  Uncomfortable, and he runs a finger under the collar of his sweater.  There's an incessant, tinny, clonking noise -- a toy xylophone being hit, repeatedly, with a tiny mallet.  He feels a headache forming, pain spidering out from behind his eyes.  He closes them, pinching the bridge of his nose, and when he opens them again, his gaze settles on a small boy, seated in a corner.  

He's bent intently over a paper, scribbling with colored pencils.  Five, perhaps six years old, with dark slanting eyes, and a fringe of black bangs that needs cutting.  Somehow, Fraser finds himself standing over the boy, looking down at him.

The boy's drawn a picture of a caribou -- crude, of course, a child's work, but there's something in it, all the same.  He's captured the way the sky looks, just before snowfall, steely and bright.  He's captured a feeling of stark and empty space.

"Where is his herd?"  Fraser asks, startling himself.  He hadn't intended on saying anything.

The boy tilts his head up.  Such a solemn expression, and when he speaks, his voice is old-man gravelly and grave.

"He's waiting for them," the boy says.

Fraser nods.  "Ah."  And then: "My name is -- Ben."

"Okay," the boy replies, staring at him steadily.  After a moment, he points at the picture.  "His name is Ben, too."

"Well.  That's...quite a coincidence."  He pauses.  "What's your name?"

"Ben," the boy says.

Fraser frowns, thumbing an eyebrow.  "Really?"

"No," the boy says.  "It's Kakrayok."   He laughs -- a ratchety little heh-heh-heh -- and smiles hugely.  It brings a kind of light to his face.

The floor shifts suddenly beneath Fraser's feet, and the room is revolving around him.  He's light-headed, breathless; his palms are perspired.  Vertigo, he thinks, assessing his symptoms.  It must be the heat and the noise.

But it comes to him, then, scales falling from his eyes with a familiar thud-thud.  He knows this sensation.  He knows it as well as his own stumbling heart.  

In Fraser's whole life, only one other smile has done thisto him _._

__

He sees clearly, in his mind's eye, a new cabin -- much larger, of course, and much closer to town.  A practical distance to neighbors, and to the muddy road where the school bus stops.  The front steps are wide-planked and shallow, to accommodate a small set of legs.  And just inside the door is a low wooden peg, where their son can hang his coat when he comes home.

__

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Acts 9:18.


End file.
